“You’re sure?” Kennedy asked.
“I’m not answering you again,” Connor said grouchily.
“I don’t want to kick in the wrong person’s door.”
“Kicking in the door is probably a bad idea anyway,” Dawn said. “Amy probably has some enchantment to protect the sanctity of her domicile.”
“Smaller words for the girl who didn’t go to Stanford,” Kennedy said.
“Spell on door,” Connor said. “No break down.”
“Okay, I’m not an idiot either. I went to Mount Holyoake for a year, you know.”
“No wonder you’re gay,” Connor mumbled.
“We’ll have no more comments from the boy who broke my arm,” Kennedy sniped.
“Sorry about that.”
Kennedy looked down sadly. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t save Emily. You help me save my girl, and we’re more than even. Hell, I’ll even let you break my other arm.”
“Won’t be necessary.”
“So,” Dawn said nervously. “About the spell on the door-” Dawn threw a powder at the door and it exploded.
“That was pretty loud,” Connor commented.
“It really was,” Kennedy said.
“Amy will be ready,” he said.
“She really will,” Kennedy concurred.
Connor kicked the door in hard. Wood splinters filled the room as he stormed in. He ducked quickly as a fireball shot past him. The shot missed, but a vampire grabbed his arms and pulled them behind his back.
Kennedy came in behind Connor. She grabbed a wood splinter off the ground with her good arm and jammed it into the vamp’s back. It burst to dust, freeing Connor. Another fireball shot toward them when a ball of water shot from the hallway and collided with hit, extinguishing the flame just before it would have hit Connor.
“You’ve been practicing,” Amy said to Dawn, raising her eyebrows.
“I was hoping for a rematch.”
Amy shot something else toward Dawn, and the younger witch rolled out of the way. Connor, meanwhile, rolled forward and swept Amy’s legs form under her.
Another vamp came from the corner and grabbed Kennedy. The slayer slammed her foot down onto the vamp’s and he lessened his grip. Kennedy pulled free.
Amy tried rolling back and getting to her feet, but Connor was too quick. He moved forward and swept her feet out again. “Where’s Willow?”
Instead of trying to stand, Amy conjured a spell from the floor. She shot another fireball and it hit Connor.
Connor backed away as his shirt lit in flames. An instant later, Dawn’s water ball hit him and put the flames out. Amy had already thrown the windows open and was trying to make an escape. As she jumped from the window, Dawn waved her arms and the glass panes slammed shut again.
Amy crashed through the window. The pain and confusion interrupted her levitation spell. Amy fell from the window and hit the ground three stories below.
“Shit!” Connor jumped from the window and hit the ground next to the unconscious witch. “She’s alive!” Connor shouted, seeing the rise and fall of Amy’s chest.
Connor cradled Amy’s head. “Where’s Willow?” he whispered gently to the witch. Amy struggled to open her eyes. “Where’s Willow?” he asked again desperately.
Amy began answering in a weak voice.
“What?” Connor answered, lowering his ear. Even with his powerful hearing, he still couldn’t make out her words.
Amy’s words continued uninterrupted in that same low weak voice. “. . . Jasmine and Sahjhan. These prophecies grrrr. . . I fwaaa. They will be footnotes in the tome of your life.”
“Where’s Willow?” Connor asked again desperately. Kennedy and Dawn ran out from the building.
“I have told you all I can. Your destiny has not yet been written.” Amy used what little strength she had left to lean up and kiss Connor’s forehead. “Darla sends her love. But now, I must go with her.”
Amy closed her eyes and breathed no more.
*
“Hey,” Connor said nervously into the cell phone. “It’s me.”
“How are you?”
“I’ve seen a few too many corpses in the last week. Listen, when you were . . . you know. Not you.”
“Angelus,” Angel replied.
“Right. Amy Madison. Where was she hiding out?”
“An apartment on Central Park,” Angel said.
“Already went there. Anywhere else?”
“I . . . Angelus, I mean. Angelus put her in touch with a vampire named Harden. He has a meat packing plant called . . . well, Harden’s.”
“Thanks, dad,” Connor said, hanging up.
Twenty minutes later, Connor, Kennedy, and Dawn walked into a cold warehouse that was Harden’s Meatpacking Plant.
“What the hell do you think these are?” Connor nodded toward the hanging carcasses. “Too big to be venison. Too small to be beef.”
“For a smart kid, you can be pretty dumb,” Kennedy said.
“Ew,” Dawn said. “Ew, ew, ew!”
Connor looked back at Kennedy desperately. She looked like she was about to cry. “She’s fine,” Connor said. “I can . . . tell or something.”
“ESP is a vampire sense?” Kennedy asked.
“Her scent is still fresh,” Connor said, turning back toward the endless rows of hanging carcasses. “If they haven’t killed her yet-”
“Then we’re not going to,” a voice came. “You guys scared me half to death running around in here. I thought some of my livestock escaped.”
“Harden?” Connor asked.
“Connor?” Harden answered.
“So what now?” Connor asked. “We shake hands and exchange business cards?”
“I would, except I’ve heard tales of you carrying a stake up your sleeve. The further away from my chest your arms stay, the more comfortable I’ll be.”
“I’d stuff my hands in my pockets, but I’m worried I’d wind up hanging on a meat hook.”
“Nonsense. Your old man and me got an arrangement. I don’t touch you.”
“If by my old man, you mean Angelus, he’s gone. And he’s never coming back.”
“Irrelevant. A deal’s a deal. Like this here.” Harden slapped one of the hanging carcasses, stripped of its skin. “Big contract from a chain of steakhouses for veal. We had to grab a lot of kids off the street this week. But a deal’s a deal. And I always deliver.”
“Excuse me,” Dawn interrupted. “Which steakhouse chain was that contract with?”
Harden looked past Connor to Dawn and smiled. He licked his lips, as if already tasting her. “A big one.” He turned back to Connor. “So here’s my deal. I give you your red haired girlfriend-”
“Actually,” Kennedy interrupted. “She’s my red haired girlfriend.”
Harden licked his lips again as he gazed at Kennedy, doubtlessly picturing what the slayer would look like hanging from a meat hook. “Anyway, you and your friends leave peacefully. You don’t tell any slayers where I am. End of story.”
“Deal,” Kennedy said anxiously.
Connor shook his head no. “I’m sorry,” he said, more to Kennedy though he was looking at Harden. “But I . . . well, I pretty much have to kill you.”
Connor sprung forward quickly, but Harden hopped back out of reach. Connor lunged forward again. Harden pushed an animal carcass, slamming it into Connor. Connor hit the floor and rolled under it. He could see Harden’s feet running for a door. Connor turned off in another direction. He had to get to Willow before Harden.
Connor ran to the edge of the warehouse and jumped as hard as he could. He cleared a railing and landed on a catwalk. He ran to a metal door and tried to open it. Locked. He pulled his leg back to kick it in when it blew off its hinges, as if of its own accord. Connor looked down to see Dawn standing on the floor below him, looking at the door.
“Thanks,” Connor called.
“Go, go, go!!!” Dawn yelled back.
Connor ran into the hallway on the other side of the door. Willow’s scent was strong. He knocked in an office door and saw Harden about to bite into the unconscious Willow’s neck. Connor kicked a chair off the ground and it nailed Harden in the head. Connor used the distraction to jump across the room, coming down on Harden’s head.
A stake sprang from Connor’s right arm and he thrust it at Harden’s chest. Harden grabbed Connor’s arm with both hands and tried to push it away.
“Stake up the sleeve,” Harden grinned.
Connor shook his head no. “Stake up both sleeves.” A stake sprang from his left arm and he slammed it into Harden’s heart.
A few minutes later, Connor set fire to the factory and walked out carrying Willow’s prone body.
*
“Even the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus recognized the passing nature of the human body. He said that the gods, if they we able, would have made human bodies permanent. Yet, as it stood, our bodies are but a clever mixture of clay. And only that spark from the fire of the gods, what we, two thousand years later, call the human soul, could remain forever.
“There can be no doubt that this particular clever mixture of clay was returned to the earth from which it came far, far too early. A beautiful and bright young woman was taken from us long before she gave this world all she had to offer it. But we take some small amount of solace in the knowledge that the spark of her divinity burns still. Our loving father has carried Emily Elizabeth Pierce into his kingdom, where he will watch over and nurture that flame for all eternity.”
Eleanor Coolidge was a sixty-three year old bishop in the Episcopal Church. Her giving the homily at Emily’s funeral had meant a lot to the Pierces. Eighteen years earlier, as a forty-five year old priest, she had baptized young Emily. One year ago, she had confirmed her into the Episcopal faith. But, more than that, Eleanor Coolidge was a woman who knew the pains the Pierces now felt and then some.
At the age of twenty-nine, Eleanor had buried her husband after his four year battle with cancer. Two years later, she buried two of her three children; two boys who had not yet reached their tenth birthday, due to a man who thought he was “still okay to drive” after far too many drinks. Then, just one year ago, Leukemia claimed her only daughter.
Eleanor sat next to Mrs. Pierce and put her arm around the crying woman. She was not only a Bishop comforting a parishioner, but a grieving mother offering solace to another who shared her pain.
Connor sat in the pew, the Reilly’s on his right and Angel on his left.
Angel noticed Buffy had come with Dawn. Part of him wanted to talk to Buffy. But he knew this wasn’t the place.
Connor had cried a lot, but Colleen Reilly could tell the full weight of the loss hadn’t hit him yet.
“Colleen ordered pizzas to be delivered to our hotel room,” Laurence said to Angel as they left the church. “Emily’s family wants to be alone with each other. We figure Connor needs the same.”
“Oh,” Angel said sadly. He’d hoped for more time with his son. “I understand. I’ll . . . I’ll call him.”
“You should come. I mean, you’re his family, right?”
“Well, it’s . . . it’s different. I should go.”
Angel turned to leave, but Laurence slapped a firm grip on his wrist. “It’s awkward for us, too. Colleen and I . . . we’re never sure how to act when you’re around. But this is for Connor.”
Angel nodded nervously. “Alright. If you really want me.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t really want you,” Laurence.
Angel looked down and started sobbing. It had been years since he’d cried.
“I’m sorry,” Laurence said. “What did I say?”
“Nothing. It’s just, when I gave Connor up, I was so worried.” Angel broke out crying. “I’m so happy people like you raised him.”
The Reilly’s were a warm family. Although he knew it would be strange for Angel, Laurence pulled Angel into a hug. “I’m happy we raised him, too.”
A few yards away, Connor walked silently with his mother.
“I’ve never know you to keep your mouth shut this long,” Colleen tried to tease.
Connor looked at her and smiled, appreciating the effort. “That’s not true. With you . . . I can always just not talk. Just . . . I don’t know. Just be myself and not have to . . . whatever. Talk.”
“Momma’s boy.” Colleen wrapped her arm around him and pulled his shoulder against hers as they walked. “It wasn’t gang violence, like the paper said. Was it?”
“No.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Connor.”
“It was,” he answered quietly.
“I’m not going to argue with you. But you’re wrong. When you get old and decrepit and wise like me, you’ll realize that. Still, I wouldn’t mind if you took a break from evil fighting.”
“I can’t. I . . . Emily didn’t die because I was fighting those guys. She died because I didn’t fight them. If I’d taken care of them when I knew there was a problem, they never would have been able to hurt her.” Connor looked down irritably. “I . . . I’m thinking of dropping out of Stanford.”
“I’m not going to argue with you about that either. “Unless you’re asking for my advice.”
“I always want your advice.”
“Take a quarter off. You can’t deal with these things now. Then, after a few months, make your decision. I’d suggest not dropping out, but . . . you’re a smart kid. A smart adult, actually. That kills me. Makes me feel old.”
“I don’t want to be a doctor. I want to do this. Fight evil. I . . . I feel like I’m not really protecting the people I love unless I fight against the things I know are out there.”
“You can still do that with a college education,” Colleen started. “Look,” she interrupted herself. “Take a leave. Come home. Don’t decide anything right now. Okay?”
Connor nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
*
“I’m worried about him,” Willow whispered. “He seems like-”
“If by him, you mean me,” Connor called from the living room. “He’s fine. And he has really good hearing.”
“Connor,” Willow said, coming in from the kitchen. “You still haven’t . . . you know. Dealt.”
“I can deal. You have a deck of cards?”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“I’ll deal in my own way and in my own time. Don’t push me, okay?”
“Okay. How . . . how’s you’re dad?”
“Which one?” Connor smiled. He knew which one she meant. “He’s sad. Worried about me. He and Nina broke up.”
“Vampire problems?”
“Those they could deal with. It’s the human problems that gave them trouble.”
“Human problems. Those are the worst.”
“Speaking of, how are you and Kennedy doing?”
“We’re good. By the way, I oughta turn you into a toad for what you did to her arm.”
“Sorry. I wanted to-”
“Vengeance,” Willow said. “You wanted vengeance. I understand. Better than most, really.”
“Yeah.” Connor looked at the clock. “I have to go.” He stood and grabbed his empty book bag. He wasn’t taking any classes and didn’t need any books. “I’m going home for a week. Then I . . . I’ll be back. We . . . I guess we have a lot of work to do.”
Willow smiled. “Take care of yourself. And Connor? I’m really glad to have you back on the team.”
“I wish I could say I was glad to be back.”
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